Product Description

When Thomas Jefferson died on the Fourth of July 1826 -- the nation's fiftieth birthday -- he was more than $100,000 in debt. Forced to sell thousands of acres of his lands and nearly all of his furniture and artwork, in 1831 his heirs bid a final goodbye to Monticello itself. The house their illustrious patriarch had lovingly designed in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, his beloved "essay in architecture," was sold to the highest bidder. Saving Monticello offers the first complete post-Jefferson history of this American icon and reveals the amazing story of how one Jewish family saved the house that became a family home to them for 89 years -- longer than it ever was to the Jeffersons. With a dramatic narrative sweep across generations, Marc Leepson vividly recounts the turbulent saga of this fabled estate. Twice the house came to the brink of ruin, and twice it was saved, by two different generations of the Levy family. United by a fierce love of country, they venerated the Founding Fathers for establishing a religiously tolerant and democratic nation where their family had thrived since the founding of the Georgia colony in 1733, largely free of the persecutions and prejudices of the Old World. Monticello's first savior was the mercurial U.S. Navy Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, a colorful and controversial sailor, celebrated for his successful campaign to ban flogging in the Navy and excoriated for his stubborn willfulness. Prompted in 1833 by the Marquis de Lafayette's inquiry about "the most beautiful house in America," Levy discovered that Jefferson's mansion had fallen into a miserable state of decay. Acquiring the ruined estate and committing his considerable resources to its renewal, he began what became a tumultuous nine-decade relationship between his family and Jefferson's home. After passing from Levy control at the time of the commodore's death, Monticello fell once more into hard times, cattle being housed on its first floor and grain in its once elegant upper rooms. Again, remarkably, a member of the Levy family came to the rescue. Uriah's nephew, the aptly named Jefferson Monroe Levy, a three-term New York congressman and wealthy real estate and stock speculator, gained possession in 1879. After Jefferson Levy poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into its repair and upkeep, his chief reward was to face a vicious national campaign, with anti-Semitic overtones, to expropriate the house and turn it over to the government. Only after the campaign had failed, with Levy declaring that he would sell Monticello only when the White House itself was offered for sale, did Levy relinquish it to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1923. Rich with memorable, larger-than-life characters, beginning with Thomas Jefferson himself, the story is cast with such figures as James Turner Barclay, a messianic visionary who owned the house from 1831 to 1834; the fiery Uriah Levy, he of the six courts-martial and teenage wife; the colorful Confederate Colonel Benjamin Franklin Ficklin, who controlled Monticello during the Civil War; and the eccentric, high-living, deal-making egoist Jefferson Monroe Levy. Pulling back the veil of history to reveal a story we thought we knew, Saving Monticello establishes this most American of houses as more truly reflective of the American experience than has ever been fully appreciated.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38122 in eBooks
• Published on: 2004-01-07
• Released on: 2004-01-07
• Format: Kindle Book
• Number of items: 1

From Publishers Weekly
In this excellent account of Monticello's ownership after Thomas Jefferson's death, Leepson, who has written for the New York Times, Preservation and Smithsonian, turns the spotlight on a family that contributed to the preservation of history but heretofore went unnoticed. When Jefferson died in 1826 his enormous debt (even by today's standards) forced his heirs to sell the beloved estate. Unfortunately, James Turner Barclay, a Charlottesville, Va., druggist who paid $7,000 for it, let the house decline during the few years he owned it. In 1834 the house was purchased by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Uriah Phillips Levy, a wealthy, bold, passionate admirer of Jefferson who quickly poured money into its repair. Thus began this Jewish-American family's nearly 90-year proprietorship of Monticello. After being briefly appropriated by the Confederacy during the Civil War, it again landed in the hands of a Levy, Uriah's nephew Jefferson Levy. Monticello became a kind of surrogate child for this extremely successful, unmarried businessman and sometime politician. When the patriotic New York socialite Maud Littleton began her campaign to make Monticello a government-owned shrine in 1911, the battle that ensued in Congress and the newspapers was as emotional as any child custody battle, but more compelling for the dynamic lives and personalities involved. Through extensive research and with fascinating detail, Leepson uncovers the facts surrounding Monticello's owners and preservation involved are great wealth, patriotism, anti-Semitism, and social and political influence. Leepson's absorbing account is an overdue chronicle and homage to the national treasure and its memorable saviors.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
Ira Dye author of The Fatal Cruise of the Argus: Two Captains in the War of 1812 Excellent and highly readable, Saving Monticello is filled with fascinating detail about the life and times of the jewel of American architecture, from its design by the most brilliant of the Founding Fathers, through its close calls with destruction, to its status today as one of the most beloved of our national monuments. Marc Leepson skillfully parallels the story of Monticello itself with the saga of two generations of the remarkable family that preserved it. -- Review

About the Author
Marc Leepson has written features and book reviews for many publications, including The New York Times, Preservation, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, and The Sun (Baltimore) and is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Americana. He lives with his family in Middleburg, Virginia.

Customer Reviews

A Forgotten Chapter of History, Rightly Restored
Everyone who knows the basic history of Monticello knows about Jefferson bringing his young bride to his "little mountain"; the evolution and growth of the house he was continually tearing down and putting up; his mostly happy retirement there, shadowed by his battles with debt; and finally the end of that magnificent life there on July 4, 1826, fifty years to the day after the young republic had declared its independence with the words from his pen....

And we know the magnificently restored estate of today, a beacon for millions of visitors who want to draw closer to that man of countless gifts.....

But there's been a missing chapter in the Monticello story for too long; the years from Jefferson's death to its opening to the public have been passed over in most histories with at best, a few paragraphs.

"Saving Monticello" fills that gap perfectly. Here we learn of the estate's decline after Jefferson's death, only arrested with the intervention of the Levy family, who are given their rightful due as stewards of this magnificent property. What happened to Monticello during the Civil War? What were some of the odd uses proposed for it? For answers to these questions and many more, read this well-crafted book.

"Saving Monticello" is a much needed book!
I highly recommend Marc Leepson's book 'Saving Monticello' because it gives credit to the Levy family without whose help and stewardship Monticello may have been erased forever.
His detail and insight of story serve to hold the reader's interest of not only Thomas Jefferson, but of the history of the time. Mr. Leepson very patiently educates us about the Levy family and their unwavering loyalty to Monticello. I had often wondered what had happened to Monticello during the years after Jefferson's death until the Memorial Foundation took it over and now is supplied to us a fascinating history, a thread which we must all be tempted to follow and remember as part of our own history. I cannot imagine looking at Monticello in the same way as I did before I read Mr. Leepson's, "Saving Monticello".

Almost Lost
I have just finished reading "Saving Monticello" and want to say just how much I enjoyed it. I am a long-time fan of Jefferson and particularly his architectural endeavors (the subject of my master's thesis) so I go out of my way to find new items on the subject. It was great to learn about those "lost years" of Monticello that up until now have barely been touched on and I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in American history. The author has clearly delineated what a tenuous hold we sometimes have on important landmarks and how easily they can be lost to future generations if we are not careful.